San francisco >> Nurses at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital are fighting to have the Facebook founder’s surname stripped from the 146-year-old institution.
The effort comes amid mounting scrutiny over the social network’s handling of user data. Some nurses, the New York Times reported, say the name makes their patients wary.
“We are in charge of keeping our most vulnerable people private and protected,” Heather Ali, who works at the hospital in nursing administration, told the newspaper. “Now people wonder, ‘How much is my privacy protected at a hospital with that name on it?’”
On Saturday, a dozen current and former nurses staged a protest outside the hospital that culminated in them taping over Zuckerberg’s name on a welcome sign, Business Insider reported.
“To give the name away to someone who has caused a great deal of harm in the world is entirely inappropriate,” nurse Sasha Cuttler told Business Insider.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors changed the name in 2015 after Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg donated $75 million for a new acute care and trauma center.
Nurses also protested the move at the time because they felt it would undercut the hospital’s illustrious history and confuse patients, according to KGO-TV, the Bay Area News Group’s media partner.
“Look it’s a double-edged sword, and I totally get the loyalty to the name as it was historically, but this is a thing that’s between the donors and the Board of Supervisors completely,” hospital spokesman Brent Andrew told the New York Times.
At least one former supervisor regrets changing the name.
“Had we known what we know now, perhaps we wouldn’t have accepted the funds from Zuckerberg,” John Avalos told the New York Times.